Report on the Farm-Prize Competition of 1S7 2. 
301 
from 1866 to 1872, or with salt, of which 200 tons have been 
applied within the same period. One characteristic feature of 
Mr. Owen's farming is his liberal use of common salt, of which 
he employs nearly 40 tons annually, supplying nearly every crop 
at the rate of about half a ton per acre. Delivered from Broms- 
grove at Ystradowen station, half a mile from the farm, the salt 
costs from 145. to 15s. per ton. Its liberal application is found 
to answer well, probably ensuring the solubility of the silica con- 
tained in the soil, and thus stiffening the straw of the grain-crops, 
and perhaps lessening the depredations of stugs, wire-worm, and 
other insect pests. Nor on the light gravel loam of Ash Hall has 
salt the disadvantage sometimes seen of running the soil together, 
and making it work up raw. Nitrate of soda, bones, and super- 
phosphate, the portable manures in use, cost annually upwards 
of 40/. A like annual outlay is incurred for linseed and cotton- 
cake. Barley-meal and bran, with home-grown and purchased 
oats to the annual value of 100/. are also consumed, raising 
greatly the manurial condition of the farm. 
Like most observant agriculturists, Mr. Owen has discovered 
that grass-land is eminently grateful. His 32 acres of park have 
been greatly improved by liberal and reiterated dressings of soil, 
manure, lime, and salt; by consuming mangold, cake, and 
corn upon it with sheep ; by treating considerable portions of 
it with liquid manure from the house and stables, which, instead 
of being applied, as now, tediously by cart, might readily enough 
be distributed by gravitation. The upper third of the park is 
grazed this season chiefly by four powerful, clean-legged cart- 
horses, prize-winners at local shows, and a pair of them entered 
for Cardiff. On the lower subdivisions at our June visit were five 
roomy, handsome, shorthorn cows, and five home-bred two-year- 
olds of the like good type, with eight feeding heifers, purchased 
at May-day for 15/. 10s., and intended to go out fat in September. 
Five level, smart, thriving calves, from the home-bred cows, by 
a well-descended, good-looking shorthorned sire, purchased in 
Gloucestershire, were, in June, getting skim-milk, cut mangold, 
and trifolium, with 1 lb. daily of linseed-cake, and were kept 
chiefly in the yards. 100 head of cattle have in six years been 
sold off, many of them bringing at Christmas 36/. each. Oats 
and oil-cake to the extent of 4 or 5 lbs. each are the chief auxiliary 
feeding-stuffs. Close by the roadside lies a field containing six 
acres of level meadow land, a telling example of the profit from 
a liberal outlay. As it could not be broken up and improved by 
a rotation, Mr. Ov.en drained it in 1867, applied 300 bushels 
per acre of lime, and in the subsequent season 20 loads per acre 
of farmyard -dung ; while in the present spring he has dressed it 
with ] cwt. per acre of nitrate of soda, 2 cwts. superphosphate, 
